WEBVTT

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[Music]

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My name is Nell Duke.

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I'm a professor at
Michigan State University,

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professor of teacher education
and educational psychology,

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and I also co-direct a research
center here called the Literacy

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Achievement Research Center.

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Teaching reading comprehension
strategies is so important K-3.

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In fact, it's the
one recommendation

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in our practice guide that
had the strongest evidence

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behind it.

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It's really clear from research

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that explicitly teaching
comprehension strategies

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to students does improve their
reading comprehension even

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in these very early
years of schooling.

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A large number of
studies have showed us

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that if we explicitly teach
and then give students lots

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of opportunities to practice
specific reading comprehension

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strategies, their reading
comprehension will improve

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and improve much more than
it would do just naturally.

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Some of these studies teach just
a single comprehension strategy,

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and even from teaching just
one comprehension strategy,

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we do see gains in students.

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Other of these studies will
have students learning several

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different strategies and
implementing those, and again,

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we see really, in some cases,
very substantial growth

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from the research studies

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in kids' reading
comprehension abilities even

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in the very early
years of schooling.

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[What is a comprehension
strategy?]

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A comprehension strategy is
something you do deliberately,

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intentionally to help
you build meaning.

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For example, with K-1, it's nice
to teach the phrase "I wonder."

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So we teach kids when
they're reading themselves

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or being read to, "I wonder.

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I wonder what the character
is going to do next.

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I wonder why the
character did that.

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I wonder why rainbows
come out when it rains."

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Those kinds of "I wonder"
statements are really a form

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of strategy--a strategy we
typically call self-questioning.

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But using the phrase "I
wonder" over and over again

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with little kids is a way
of getting them to the point

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where they can use a
strategy like self-questioning

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on their own even in their
earlier stages of development.

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There are a number of specific
comprehension strategies

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that we want students to develop
the use of in their reading.

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One is monitoring; this is
really a fundamental one,

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which is just paying attention

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to whether what you are
reading is making sense,

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and then when it isn't
making sense, doing something

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to clarify or to fix up.

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For example, rereading is
a great strategy to use

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when what you're reading
isn't making sense to you.

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Another important strategy
we want students to use,

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especially early on
in their reading,

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is to activate their relevant
background knowledge--What do

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they know related to
the text that they're

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about to read?--and then
to make predictions based

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on the background
knowledge that they have.

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We also want students to make
inferences, to make connections

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between different ideas in
the text and to sort of read

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between the lines of the
text that they're reading.

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We want students to
visualize as well,

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and very interestingly although
good adult readers visualize

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very easily, we find
that many young children

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and even some older struggling
readers don't visualize;

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they aren't picturing the
characters and the setting

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of the story, for example, or
they aren't picturing a process

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that they are reading about
in informational text.

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So we really want students to
be able to make those pictures,

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make those images
in their minds,

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see a movie in their minds of
what they're reading about.

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We like summarizing as
an important strategy

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to have students using, so
summarizing both sections

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of the text and then the
text as a whole as they read.

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That's an important one as well.

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[What does comprehension
strategy instruction look like?]

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I've had the privilege of
being in the classrooms

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of many teachers who are very,

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very strong at teaching reading
comprehension to children

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in K-3, and there are some
common threads that I see

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across those classrooms.

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One of the things that I see is

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that these teachers
are really good

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at setting a compelling
context for reading.

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So kids in those classrooms
aren't just reading

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because the teacher handed
them something to read;

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they're reading because they
are really engaged with,

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really interested in the
material they're reading.

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Maybe the teacher is having them
read about some topic in science

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so that they can teach
their buddy classroom

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about that topic.

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Or maybe teachers are
having students read stories

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because they are going to write
their own stories to contribute

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to the school library.

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They always have
this larger context,

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and the reason this
is important is

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because reading comprehension
is really hard work.

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There's a lot of
glucose burning up there,

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so to speak, when we're reading.

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It takes a lot of cognitive
energy to pay attention

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to whether what you're
reading is making sense

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and apply all these active
strategies and so on.

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And students are just less
inclined to go through all

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of that mental effort if they
don't have a compelling reason

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to do so.

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So I do notice that these very
effective teachers are creating

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these really compelling
reasons for students

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to be comprehending
in the first place.

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The students work harder,
they exert more effort,

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and it really shows in their
comprehension development.

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One of the things that
I sometimes see is

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that teachers will lose
sight of the purpose

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of comprehension strategies.

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The purpose of them is simply

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to help us understand
better when we read.

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We don't want strategies
to get to the point

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where they're taking
on a life of their own.

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So to take a concrete
example, some teachers,

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when they are teaching
visualization,

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will have students fill out a
little worksheet as they read

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that says, "What did you see in
your mind as you were reading?

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What did you hear?

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What did you touch?

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What did you taste?

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What did you smell?"

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And to me, that gets too
far away from what we know

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about what good readers
do when they read.

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Because when we read, very often
we aren't smelling anything

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in the story, or
we're not touching

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or hearing anything
in the story.

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We're usually seeing something,
but even not always that.

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And we don't want students
to get to the point

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where they're just trying
to apply these strategies

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or just trying to
smell something,

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so to speak, for the worksheet.

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We want to them to be applying
them only to the degree

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that they really help support
their reading comprehension.

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So that's one of the mistakes I
see, and teachers can get away

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from that mistake
or that challenge

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by just constantly asking
themselves, "What do I do

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as a good reader when I read?

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What do I know about what good
readers do when they read?"

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and try to keep students' own
activities and their own actions

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in their mind's eye
focused on that goal.

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And I would add that
patience is really important.

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We have some research to suggest

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that it takes teachers
several years

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to become really good reading
comprehension teachers.

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It's much more difficult
than teaching some

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of the lower-level skills.

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And as a result, teachers just
need time to become very good

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at this and sort of be
patient with the fact

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that this is really difficult
work that they are trying to do.

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[Music]